Real-time DNS Analytics: Product Spotlight

Most businesses these days are well acquainted with Google and social analytics as these are valuable tools that help gauge how web content is performing. 

But what about DNS? 

Did you realize there are analytics options for that too? In this product spotlight, you’ll learn all about our DNS analytics suite!

DNS Analytics and Query Logs: What’s That?

One of the best-kept secrets of DNS is the ability to collect data on the DNS level. 

Why is this a secret?

Because it’s not widely offered by many providers. In fact, DNS Made Easy and sister company Constellix are the only DNS providers in the industry that offers such robust analytics for query activity, including raw data logs, charts, and interactive maps of your domain data. Our DNS Analytics suite provides high-level insight into your DNS infrastructure, with data available in real time or historical snapshots. 

DNS Analytics Features

Let’s take a deeper look into our Analytics suite’s functionality and features:

Account Analytics 

1. Total Queries: Get a quick overview of your recent query activity for all domains in your DNS Made Easy account.
2. Queries / Time: Every time you log into your account, you’ll see a bar chart of the daily query count for all domains for your current billing cycle.
   

1. Queries / Domain: For deeper insight, you can access the interactive Queries by Domain table. This table lets you compare activity between domains and view queries for a specific period of time so that you can quickly identify any unusual traffic patterns.

Domain Analytics

1. Domain Overview: This feature provides a quick overview of domain activity during your current billing period.
2. Queries by Location (map): With this interactive map, you get a clear visual representation of your query counts for your domains across the world. This data is derived from DNS Made Easy’s points of presence (PoPs). Hovering over each data point will provide you with the actual count at that specific PoP. You can also narrow down your result by specific domain and view them one at a time. This feature is particularly useful for troubleshooting query surges, examining server loads and zones, and evaluating the impact of configuration changes.
3. Queries by Location (table and time-series): The Queries by Location time-series option lets you see query counts by location in 30-minute intervals. Depending on your account type, you can access up to 65 days worth of data. This feature helps you gather deeper DNS infrastructure insights, identify IPv6 users, analyze DDoS and other DNS-based attacks, and pinpoint your most- or least-used DNS records.

Query Traffic logging

1. Our query logging feature lets you view live query traffic through one of our PoPs. This data is in raw tabular format and is invaluable for identifying misconfigurations, finding unused records, comparing and detecting attacks, and pinpointing excessive CDN requests.

Query logs can be filtered by:
City
EDNS client
IP version
Record name
Record type
Source address

Record Usage‍

This tool shows you real-time stats (RTS) of your DNS record usage. While our other analytics features address the “who” about your domain queries, the RTS record usage tool gives you the “how” of it—more specifically—how your DNS resources are being used. You can filter via record name, type, location, and IP protocol. The data you receive will help track down especially difficult-to-identify system misconfigurations. Another way RTS can be beneficial is for tracking web pages and marketing campaigns on the DNS level, as you can see which records are generating activity and when.

The Power of DNS Analytics Is Undeniable

Once you experience the power and benefits of DNS analytics, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. The data not only provides you with an unprecedented level of DNS insight, but it is also invaluable for troubleshooting and detecting/analyzing DNS attacks. You can even use your DNS query data to track marketing campaigns or web page performances, or for any other unique use case applicable to your organization.